Burt Rutan
Burt Rutan
Elbert Leander "Burt" Rutanis an American aerospace engineer noted for his originality in designing light, strong, unusual-looking, energy-efficient aircraft. He designed the record-breaking Voyager, which was the first plane to fly around the world without stopping or refueling, and the sub-orbital spaceplane SpaceShipOne, which won the Ansari X-Prize in 2004 for becoming the first privately funded spacecraft to enter the realm of space twice within a two-week period. With his VariEze design, Rutan is responsible for popularizing the canard configuration...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionEngineer
Date of Birth17 June 1943
CityEstacada, OR
CountryUnited States of America
In the coming era of manned space exploration by the private sector, market forces will spur development and yield new, low-cost space technologies. If the history of private aviation is any guide, private development efforts will be safer, too.
It's not good enough for us to have generations of kids that ... look forward to a better version of a cell phone with a video in it. They need to look forward to exploration.
I drove an electric car for seven years because of its advanced technology, not because I have any concerns about energy resources. I have none at all. And when environmentalists say that global warming is dangerous, unprecedented and that we'll have a tipping point for atmospheric carbon dioxide, it's just nonsense.
Space travel is the only technology that is more dangerous and more expensive now than it was in its first year. Fifty years after Yuri Gagarin, the space shuttle ended up being more dangerous and more expensive to fly than those first throwaway rockets, even though large portions of it were reusable. It's absurd.
The ship that we're developing in our shop right now in Mojave will have a very large cabin.
Breakthroughs are what define our species. They come about because we are threatened.
Dick made the point in 1986 that it would be good for someone to come out and beat the record, and he's delighted to give it up.
We have a lot of openings for people...not just engineers, but people that can help us build research spaceships and production spaceships.
I strongly feel that, if we are successful, our program will mark the beginning of a renaissance for manned space flight. This might even be similar to that wonderful time period between 1908 and 1912 when the world went from a total of ten airplane pilots to hundreds of airplane types and thousands of pilots in 39 countries.
Mankind does need to move away from where we are to explore somewhere else.
We can show that we can move right into an industry to fly the public at the level of safety that the early airliners had,
We then develop an expert prototype-manufacturing workforce for our research projects, and later provide production opportunities for them as our spaceships enter the production line.
Today's flight marks a critical turning point in the history of aerospace. We have redefined space travel as we know it.
Since Yuri Gagarin and Al Shepard's epic flights in 1961, all space missions have been flown only under large, expensive government efforts, ... By contrast, our program involves a few, dedicated individuals who are focused entirely on making spaceflight affordable.